Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Thoughts from the first 24 hours in India

A post with photos and more details is coming, but this is just some thoughts from our first day here in India.Here is a list of our accomplishments from our first 24 hours in India:- no one barfed (yet)- the driver at the airport was actually there with a sign, and wemade it to our first hotel- we crossed busy, multilane streets in Delhi- we had two delicious meals of Indian food- we did NOT get scammed- we rode the metro around Delhi

Overall, not a bad first day!

India, so far, is a whole different world from Chile. I think beforevisiting either, I would have guessed that they were at similar levelsof development, but in truth, Chile (especially in Santiago) is verymodern and developed, and India is exactly what you might expect.

The hustle and bustle of this city is just crazy. Just as you'veprobably heard, the streets are shared between cars, motorcycles,motorized rickshaws, bike rickshaws and pedestrians. There are noseparate lanes and rarely even sidewalks. Usually we are just walkingon the road alongside parked cars, with all these other vehicleszooming by.

When we have to cross a street, we find a group of Indians waiting andwe cross when they do as part of their group. It's very nervewracking, and Caroline is a bit braver about it than I am.

We stand out a lot because we are white. Except at the hostel, it'srare to see any other white people at all. We might have seen 10 totalall day.

A lot of young Indian guys will approach us offering advice, but wehave read that these are all touts or scams, and that you shouldbasically avoid anyone who approaches you like that. It's sort ofdisappointing and also stressful, because they mostly approach me, notCaroline, because it's not so typical here for men to talk to womenthey don't know well.

The food has been really good so far, and I think we'll find evenbetter food, because so far we've only eaten at our hostels'restaurants. The prices are amazingly cheap - like $1.00-1.50 for avegetarian dish or $.70 for naan bread - but actually a guy staying atour hostel told us that this is a bit pricey compared to streetstands, called dhabas.

We are not sure if we will eat at the street places at all. So far,we've had two tasty and cheap meals with no getting sick (yet!), andwe might decide we just don't want to take the risk to try a place onthe side of the road...but we've seen a lot of food that looks REALLYgood, and nearly everything is vegetarian! We might decide to take therisk, but not yet.

We chatted with a nice German couple at the hostel this evening. Theyhave already done many of the stops we will be doing, so it was coolto hear about that. We might run into them touring tomorrow, since wehas overlapping plans.

Ok, that's all for now. We are really tired, but I don't know if it'sfrom jetlag or from 4 straight days of traveling. Either way, somegood sleep tonight will do the trick.